IRS Proposes Regulations on Employer Penalty
Source: UBA
The Internal Revenue Service has released proposed regulations on the health care reform employer "shared responsibility" penalty provision. This is the penalty on "large" employers (those with at least 50 full-time or full-time equivalent employees) that do not provide affordable minimum essential coverage for full-time employees and their dependents and have at least one full-time employee who receives subsidized Exchange coverage (new Internal Revenue Code section 4980H, enacted as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010). The IRS also posted on its website a set of related questions and answers.
Employers Affected
An employer meets the penalty provision's large employer threshold if it employed, on average, at least 50 full-time or full-time equivalent employees in the prior calendar year. Thus, for 2014, the first year the penalty is effective, an employer would consider the average number of such employees it had during 2013 to determine whether it is a covered large employer. The proposed regulations include a transition rule under which employers may use any consecutive six-month period in 2013, instead of the full year, to calculate the average number of employees.
A full-time employee is one who is employed by the employer an average of 30 hours per week. Part-time employees count, too, taking into account the number of full-time equivalents: For a given month, add the number of hours for all part-time employees (counting no more than 120 hours for any one employee) and divide by 120. Count all hours worked and all hours for which payment is made or due for vacation, illness, holiday, incapacity, layoff, jury duty, military duty, or leave of absence. Notice 2011-36 had limited the period of leave that must be included to 160 hours but the proposed regulations eliminate this limitation.
The proposed regulations clarify that the IRS's safe harbor for determining full-time status (i.e., using the look-back/stability period approach) will not apply for purposes of determining whether an employer meets the threshold of 50 full-time employees. Instead, whether an employer is a large employer for a given year will be determined by calculating employees' actual hours of service in the immediately preceding year. Equivalency rules may be used for employees not paid on an hourly basis. An entity not in existence in the preceding year may be a large employer in its first year if it is reasonably expected to employ an average of at least 50 full-time employees during its first year. Special hours-counting rules are proposed for educational institutions, employees paid on a commission basis, and other circumstances.
Whether a worker is an employee of a particular employer will be based on the long-standing common law principle that, if a service recipient has the right to direct and control how a worker performs services, that service recipient is the worker's employer. The proposed regulations also reiterate that controlled group rules apply for purposes of identifying the employer. Thus, all common law employees of all entities that are part of the same controlled group or affiliated service group must be counted to determine whether the threshold of 50 full-time employees is met.
Assessable Penalty for Affected Employers
For a given month beginning after 2013, if an employer does not offer minimum essential coverage to "substantially all" of its full-time employees and their dependents and a full-time employee obtains subsidized Exchange coverage, the employer must pay a penalty equal to $166.67 multiplied by the number of its full-time employees in excess of 30. Under the proposed regulations, "substantially all" means all but five percent of full-time employees or, if greater, five full-time employees. The proposed regulations define "dependent" as a child, within the meaning of Code 152(f)(1), who is under age 26. (Thus, a spouse is not a dependent.) The proposed regulations offer transitional relief (only for 2014) for employers that do not currently provide dependent coverage. Any employer that takes steps during its plan year that begins in 2014 toward offering dependent coverage will not be liable for penalties solely on account of its failure to offer dependent coverage for that plan year. The proposed rules also explain that the 30-employee reduction used when calculating this penalty is applied on a controlled group basis so that each member company reduces its number of full-time employees by a ratable share of 30.
If an employer offers minimum essential coverage to substantially all of its full-time employees and their dependents, but a full-time employee nevertheless obtains subsidized Exchange coverage (i.e., because the employer's coverage fails to meet the minimum value or affordability test), the employer must pay a penalty equal to the lesser of the penalty determined in the preceding paragraph or $250 multiplied by the number of full-time employees who are certified as having subsidized Exchange coverage for the month.
Since no penalty is triggered unless at least one full-time employee obtains subsidized Exchange coverage, it is important to know whether a full-time employee can obtain subsidized Exchange coverage. An employee can obtain subsidized Exchange coverage only if his or her household income is between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty line, he or she enrolls in Exchange coverage and is not eligible for Medicaid (or other government coverage), and either no employer coverage is offered or the employer coverage offered fails to meet either a minimum value test or an affordability test:
- Employer coverage meets the minimum value test if it covers at least 60 percent of the total allowed cost of benefits that are expected to be incurred under the plan. The Department of Health and Human Services is working with IRS to develop a calculator that employers may use to determine whether this test is met.
- Employer coverage meets the affordability test if the employee is required to pay no more than 9.5% of his household income for self-only coverage. Since employers have no practical way of knowing what an employee's household income is, the IRS previously stated that employers could use an employee's W-2 reported wages as a safe harbor. The proposed regulations explain how that safe harbor would apply, including how it would apply to partial years worked. The W-2 safe harbor will be very useful to most employers, but the proposed regulations also offer two additional safe harbors that employers may use to determine affordability: one based on monthly rate of pay (i.e., coverage is affordable if the employee's monthly cost for self-only coverage does not exceed 9.5% of his monthly rate of pay) and the other based on eligibility for Medicaid (i.e., coverage is affordable if the employee's cost for self-only coverage does not exceed 9.5% of the federal poverty line for a single individual).
If an employee elects coverage under an employer's group health plan, the employee cannot qualify for subsidized Exchange coverage even if the employer coverage fails the minimum value or affordability test. However, providing mandatory group health coverage that fails the minimum value or affordability test will not prevent an employee from obtaining subsidized Exchange coverage.
The proposed regulations retain the look-back/stability period safe harbor method provided in prior guidance for determining which employees are full-time for purposes of the penalty calculation. Thus, an employer can use a look-back period of up to 12 months to determine whether an on-going employee (i.e., one employed for at least the length of the look-back measurement period selected) is a full-time employee. If an employer uses a look-back/stability period for its on-going employees, it also can use the look-back/stability period for new and seasonal employees. The proposed regulations include additional special rules for a new variable-hour employee or seasonal employee whose status changes during the look-back measurement period, for rehired employees and employees returning from unpaid leaves of absence, for employees of temporary agencies, and for other special circumstances.
The proposed regulations assure that an employer will (a) receive certification of an employee's receipt of subsidized Exchange coverage and (b) have an opportunity to respond regarding application of the penalty before IRS actually assesses a penalty in connection with that employee.
Recordkeeping obviously is important both for compliance (existing law already requires substantial recordkeeping for tax purposes) and to substantiate any defense to a penalty.
Opportunity to Comment on Proposed Regulations
Employers and other stakeholders can help shape final regulations at a public hearing on April 23, 2013, and by submitting written comments by March 18, 2013. In addition, the government also requests comments on the new Code § 6056 employer-reporting requirements and the 90-day waiting period rule.
New PPACA Fees Will Strike Employers
Source: UBA
By Josie Martinez
The goal of health care reform is health care for all… but at what cost? By 2014, businesses with 50 or more full-time-equivalent employees will be at risk for financial penalties (the so-called “shared responsibility assessments”) if they do not offer health coverage to full-time employees. We are all well aware of the $2,000 and $3,000 assessments that could be applied to employers that do not offer affordable, minimum value coverage to full-time employees, and most of us have been advising clients on penalty avoidance strategies for many months already. Meanwhile, business owners nationwide struggle with weighing the financial aspects of providing such coverage or paying the penalties. A recent survey suggests that only 28 percent of companies that employ a large number of low-income workers offer health benefits.
But there are other costs to consider, as well. In addition to shared responsibility assessments, there will be various other fees that will be felt by employers that are expected to ultimately result in higher premiums and could undermine a core principle of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that is meant to provide basic health protections for all Americans. Over the next several years, insured group health plans will be required to absorb the costs of three new fees. These fees imposed by PPACA on insurers will inevitably trickle down to increase rates in the coming years. In a recent meeting presented by a major national health insurance carrier, regarding “State and Federal Reform Impact,” it became clear that at least three new assessments/fees imposed on carriers will affect employers’ renewal rates in the future and ultimately their bottom line:
- Reinsurance Assessment - This per capita fee on medical plans will fund a three-year reinsurance program designed to reimburse companies that insure high-cost individuals in the individual health insurance market. The total amounts to be assessed are $12 billion in 2014, $8 billion in 2015 and $5 billion in 2016. The estimated fee is approximately $63 per year ($5.25 per month) per covered individual in the first year; however, fees are expected to decrease in subsequent years. The assessment applies to both insured and self-funded plans. Insurance providers will pay the fee for insured plans while third-party administrators may pay the fee on behalf of self-funded plans.
- Comparative Effectiveness Research Fee (CERF) – This is an annual fee imposed on all insured and self-insured plans. The goal of the research is to determine which of two or more treatments works best when applied to patients, thereby comparing different types of therapy against each other. CERF will be charged to health plans to help fund the research that will be conducted by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, a nonprofit organization established by PPACA. The initial annual fee is $1 per year per health plan member (includes dependents). The annual charge increases to $2 per member the following year and then increases annually with inflation after that until it ends in 2019. Insurance providers will pay the fee on behalf of insured plans, while employers with self-funded plans will need to determine their liability and account for this fee in their own reporting. For many plans, the first payments will be due July 2013.
- Health Insurance Industry Fee – This annual fee affects all fully insured plans. The estimated cost of this tax will be $8 billion for 2014 and eventually increase to $14.3 billion by 2018. The tax is divided among health insurers and will likely be passed on to plan sponsors as an addition to premium. The Health Insurance Industry Fee has a much greater potential financial impact than either of the other two taxes because it is intended to help fund the cost-generating provisions of the PPACA. The fee will be divided among health insurance carriers based on each carrier’s share of the overall premium base and will only be assessed relative to insured health plans, inclusive of medical, dental and vision plans. Self-funded health plans and associated stop loss premium will not be included in the premium base. Adding insult to injury, this fee is not deductible for federal income tax purposes. This substantially increases the cost impact, which is expected to be in the range of 2 percent to 2.5 percent of premium in 2014, increasing to 3 percent to 4 percent of premium in later years. Insurance companies will likely begin to reflect this additional cost in their premium rates in 2013 and/or 2014.
These new fees are supposedly intended to raise revenues that will support the individual insurance market, help fund the state exchanges and assist with conducting research for more effective treatments. But they will also dramatically impact group health plan premiums and could spur many employers to drop their group health plan sponsorship, pushing more employees into the individual market. In anticipation of what lies ahead, it behooves us to work proactively with employers so they can plan their finances accordingly rather than be blindsided by unwelcome surprises well before implementation happens.
One-Third Of U.S. Workers Aren't Getting Enough Sleep
Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com
Despite the recommendation that adults get between seven and nine hours of sleep a night, a new study shows that about a third of us aren't hitting those goals.
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey on sleep habits of U.S. workers. They found that 30 percent of people in the study -- which calculates to about 40.6 million workers in the U.S. -- get fewer than six hours of sleep a night. Their research was published in this week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The study of 15,214 people also shed light on what kinds of jobs are linked with less sleep. The researchers found that people who work in manufacturing get less sleep than other workers, with 34.1 percent of them reporting getting less than six hours of sleep a night.
In addition, people who work the night shift were more likely to report getting inadequate sleep (44 percent), compared with those working during the day (28.8 percent).
Among people who worked the night shift, certain industries had high prevalences of inadequate sleep, including 69.7 percent of warehouse and transportation workers and 52.3 percent of health-care and social assistance workers, according to the report.
The researchers also found that people between ages 30 and 64 were more likely to report not getting enough sleep, compared with workers between ages 18 and 29 and workers age 65 and older.
People who work more than one job are also more likely to not get enough sleep during the night, compared with people who just have one job -- 37 percent versus 29.4 percent. People who work more than 40 hours a week are also less likely to get enough sleep per night, compared with those who work a 40-or-under week.
Sleep deprivation is dangerous because it raises the risk of a whole host of health problems. Studies have linked inadequate rest with depression, a decreased immune system and memory issues, WebMD reported. Sleep deprivation has also been linked to obesity, high blood pressure and daytime fatigue, which could present safety issues on the job, Harvard Medical School reported.
Employees' top 10 desired perks for the workplace
Source: https://eba.benefitnews.com
Since 32% of employers reported that top performers left their organizations in 2012 and 39% are concerned that they'll lose top talent in 2013, many are asking current employees for feedback on how to increase job satisfaction. According to a new CareerBuilder survey, 26% of workers said that providing special perks is an effective way to improve employee retention. Here are the 10 that scored highest when workers were asked to identify one perk that would make their workplace more satisfying.
1. Half-day Fridays
The top choice for 40% of employees surveyed was early dismissal on Fridays. According to Mercer research, work-life balance could recharge employee engagement and help retain employees.
2. On-site fitness center
Twenty percent of workers said providing easy access to gyms would increase their job satisfaction. A HealthFitness expert offers 10 tips in this slide show for building and sustaining a culture of health in the workplace.
3. Ability to wear jeans
Having a casual dress code was the most preferred perk by 18% of employees and doesn't cost employers a dime to implement.
4. Daily catered lunches
On the other hand, 17% of employees wished their employer would provide daily lunches, which could improve productivity in addition to satisfaction if workers don’t need to leave the office to buy food.
5. Massages
Employees who wanted massages to relax in the workplace (16%) may be on to something as experts claim massage therapy can boost morale, increase productivity and even help with attraction and retention.
6. Nap room
The Huffington Post and Google have created napping rooms or pods in their offices, a perk that 12% of employees wanted most, according to CareerBuilder. Arianna Huffington said “I love seeing our hard-working reporters disappear into the nap room,” and joked: “We haven’t seen any disappear in pairs yet, but we’re watching for it!”
7. Rides to and from work
Not only could office-provided transportation or organized carpooling save employees stressful commutes, sharing a ride could help them save money on transportation or fuel costs. No wonder 12% desire this perk most from their employers.
8. Snack cart that comes around the office
Having a snack cart patrol the office would permit employees to munch happily while never leaving their desks. Eight percent of employees said this perk would most improve their job satisfaction.
9. Private restroom
Having their own restroom would make 7% of workers very appreciative, though employers may have trouble giving this perk to every employee.
10. On-site daycare
Home Depot agrees with 6% of workers that on-site daycare is a perk worth having. The company’s onsite child care facility has space for 278 children and is available to all employees in the Atlanta area, not just those who work at the head office.
Weight Loss Is Employees’ Top New Year’s Resolution
Source: https://www.compsych.com
Thirty-nine percent of employees say losing weight is their top health concern while 26 percent say stress has them most worried, according to a ComPsych Tell It Now poll released today. ComPsych is the world’s largest provider of employee assistance programs and is the pioneer and leading provider of fully integrated EAP, behavioral health, wellness, work-life, HR and FMLA administration services under the GuidanceResources brand.
“Weight loss is, not surprisingly, the number one health concern this year,” said Dr. Richard A. Chaifetz, Chairman and CEO of ComPsych. “What is significant is that many more employees are aware of stress as a major contributor to health problems. Corporate wellness programs that address both physical and emotional health are uniquely suited to help employees make lasting lifestyle changes, which will ultimately reduce health and disability costs while improving productivity.”
Employees were asked: Which health issue are you most trying to stay ahead of this year?
39 percent said “weight loss”
26 percent said “stress”
17 percent said “exercise”
9 percent said “diet improvement”
6 percent said “quitting smoking”
3 percent said “other”
ComPsych’s build-to-suit health and wellness program – HealthyGuidance® -- targets employee behavior and lifestyle issues before they become significant health risks. Drawing upon more than 25 years of behavioral health experience, HealthyGuidance uses a consultative, high-touch approach, empowering employees to make healthy lifestyle changes through expert guidance. The program offers:
• Comprehensive health risk assessments and screenings
• Live, telephonic wellness coaching with behavioral, health and nutrition experts
• Online health management tools including diet and exercise programs and incentive tracking
• Action-oriented wellness seminars, turn-key wellness challenges and award-winning communications
• Targeted programs such as tobacco cessation, weight management, stress reduction and more
Using Social Media for Learning Gets Better Foothold in Workplace
Source: https://www.workforce.com
By Garry Kranz
Social learning may not yet be a mainstay of corporate training departments, although it’s more than a trend inside larger enterprises.
A Jan. 22 report from Bersin by Deloitte, an Oakland, California-based research firm formerly known as Bersin & Associates, says large employers are fueling increased adoption of social-learning tools, such as internal employee blogs, wikis and online expert communities. Enterprises with at least 10,000 employees spent an average of $46,000 on social tools in 2012, three times the average two years ago.
The uptick contributed to an overall spending jump of 12 percent on employee training last year, according to The Corporate Learning Factbook 2013: Benchmarks, Trends, and Analysis of the U.S. Training Market. The study is based on research involving 300 organizations of various sizes and industries.
Most U.S.-based employers use some type of social tool to facilitate greater employee learning, including internal blogs, wikis, subject-matter directories and “communities of practice,” in which employees develop and share their expertise, says Karen O’Leonard, a Bersin by Deloitte analyst who authored the report.
“The big challenge for learning and development professionals is to create a new mind-set of continuous learning, not thinking of social tools as one component within a specific program,” O’Leonard says.
Organizations using social tools face another near-term hurdle: how to seamlessly organize the increasing volume of user-generated content. “We expect content management will become a growing issue. The research shows that the most effective learning organizations have created a strategy for content management and knowledge sharing,” O’Leonard says.
This year’s report uses Bersin’s proprietary “maturity model,” which lets an organization benchmark its learning function based on four levels of effectiveness and business impact.
Most companies are not at the highest rung of maturity, but there is a marked difference between those that are highly mature and those that are still getting there, O’Leonard says. The most effective learning functions are less involved with program management and play an active role in developing long-range strategies.
“High-impact learning organizations have L&D professionals who are very adept at performance consulting and building the capabilities the organization will need in the future,” O’Leonard says, referring to learning and development. “They’re outsourcing noncore competencies and getting away from the business of delivering ad hoc training.”
Also, the manner in which companies spent their training dollars reflects the varying level of effectiveness and maturity. U.S. companies spent about 16 percent of their training budgets on outside learning services, products and consultants in 2012, up from 12 percent in 2009. In general, organizations spent less money on expensive customized training and opted instead to purchase commodity-priced vendor products, the report finds.
At organizations deemed highly mature, the inverse is true: they invested money in instructor-led custom content and assessment programs, with off-the-shelf training products a lower spending priority.
Other notable findings:
The 12 percent rise in training expenditures equates to about $706 per employee. However, companies at the top end of the maturity scale spent $867 per employee—34 percent higher than spending by companies at the lower maturity level.
Many companies beefed up their learning and development staff last year, but the gains were offset by faster growth in the number of employees receiving learning. That dynamic has led to a decline in the trainer-to-learner ratio at many companies and is “one sign of the changing role of the L&D function” from clearinghouse to facilitator.
Training spending increased the most in the technology and manufacturing sectors, which each posted year-over-year increases of 20 percentage points.
The 12 percent spending surge shows companies are reinvesting in skills development after a long period of financial instability, O’Leonard says.
Study reveals 10-point jump in employee engagement
Source: https://eba.benefitnews.com
By Tristan Lejeune
Employee engagement has risen in the past year, according to Temkin Group research announced Wednesday, and those companies with highly engaged employees are reaping meaningful rewards in terms of personnel and profit.
Temkin researchers say engaged employees are three times as likely to suggest improvements to a firm than those who aren’t engaged and twice as likely to do something positive for the company, even if it’s not expected of them. They are also twice as likely to stay late at work to get something done or help a coworker without being asked; a highly engaged worker is reportedly more than six times as likely to recommend a friend or relative apply for a job.
The study indicates that three-quarters of employees with companies with markedly above-average financial performance are at least moderately engaged. For employers with subpar financial results, it’s less than half.
The best news: engagement is up. After tabulating results from surveys of approximately 2,400 full-time U.S. employees from August of last year compared to August 2011, Temkin reports that 57% are moderately or highly engaged, up from 47%.
“It may not show up on any balance sheet, but a highly engaged workforce is one of the most valuable assets that an organization can possess,” says Bruce Temkin, a customer experience expert and managing partner of Temkin Group.
Small businesses fare better in the research than the very large — 60% of the populations at companies with 100 or fewer workers are engaged, versus 46% at companies with 10,000 or more employees. Travel and retail firms have the lowest engagement levels; professional services firms and construction companies have the highest.
Temkin says the most engaged employees trend toward older, male, college-educated and African-American. Forty-six percent of individual contributors are moderately or highly engaged, as are 75% of senior executives.
Defined Contribution Help
Source: UBA
Workers in defined contribution retirement plans want resources from their employer to help them make the best savings decisions, a new poll by State Street Global Advisors finds. Seventy-four percent of respondents said they want clear examples on how their savings will work in the future, while 71 percent said they would like their employers to bump up their savings rate by one percentage point every year.
Taking Charge
Source: UBA
A new study finds that more defined contribution plan sponsors are taking an active role to understand and monitor the performance of the funds in their plans. Research by Callan Associates reveals that 40.7 percent of plan sponsors said they swapped out under-performing funds or managers in 2012, a 9.2 percent increase from 2011
Less than half of small businesses offer benefits
Source: https://eba.benefitnews.com
By Tristan Lejeune
Less than half of U.S. small businesses offer benefits to employees, according to research from LIMRA released this week. The firm finds that 47% of those with two to 99 employees offer benefits, the lowest level in two decades.
In its survey of 754 private small businesses, LIMRA spoke to the individuals who made or shared decision-making regarding business insurance and employee offerings. Samples were weighed by company size, industry and region based on U.S. Census Bureau data.
Seventy-eight percent of small American businesses are family-owned, LIMRA reports, and such firms had a sharper decline in benefit penetration (47% down to 40%) than non-family-owned ones between 2005 and 2012. Female-owned businesses, which accounted for a quarter of the total, tend to be smaller, produce less revenue and are less likely to offer insurance benefits than male-owned firms (37% versus 50%).
“The recession has had an impact on smaller employers’ ability to offer benefits, particularly those with fewer than ten employees,” says Kim Landry, LIMRA Product Research analyst. “The weak economy caused a lot of small firms to close, while the new firms cropping up to replace them are less likely to offer benefits. Many small businesses are also hesitant to add new benefits until the economy improves.”
Landry says that among those who do still offer benefits, health care and pharmacy remains the most popular by far, as well as the most common.
“These benefits provide an opportunity for small business owners to obtain coverage not only for their employees, but also for themselves and their families,” notes Landry. “We also found dental and vision coverage to be common offerings among small businesses, as these products tend to be very popular with employees.”
Life insurance also is offered frequently, because of its low cost and ease of administration, LIMRA reports. Accident insurance and short- and long-term disability, however, have what LIMRA calls fairly low penetration rates.
Census Bureau data reveal that 35% of the U.S. workforce is in small businesses, which account for 98% of American companies.